Thursday, 6 June 2019

A
scrapyard in the Sonora Desert, Mexico. The present day. A Landrover
pulls up in a dust storm. A team climbs out, wrapped up and goggled
against the all-pervasive sand, to the team of Federales that is
waiting for them in the storm. After some language difficulties,
another team arrives, among them the interpreter, Laughlin.

A
Cartographer by trade, Laughlin has been pressed into service as he
speaks French. Claude Lacombe, the leading French expert will need
his services. Lacombe himself greets his new colleague warmly, asking
him how long he’s been with the project. From the beginning.
Laughlin congratulates the Frenchman on his contributions, but their
reverie is interrupted by an excited announcement; they’re all
here!

Incredibly,
fantastically, they are all here – all five of them. The Grumman
Avenger torpedo-bombers sit, pristine in a circle. Impossible. And
yet there they are, the astonished team clambering over the aircraft.
A check of the engine block numbers; they tally with the list. The
planes have fuel. The flaps work. Baffled, Laughlin asks an American
team member what’s going on. It’s Flight 19, the missing flight
from Fort Lauderdale. From 1945. But they look brand new! The leader
slides back the cockpit canopy on one of the planes, to reveal family
snapshots, charts, a 1945 calendar – all in new condition. Where’s
the pilot? How the hell did it get here? The Interpreter’s
questions fall on deaf ears as experienced hands work the controls,
power, starter to send the Wright R-2600 Twin Cyclone engine snarling
into life.

There’s
a witness; an old local man, seemingly half-crazed who saw the
aircraft arrive the night before. Gently, the team questions the man,
who displays terrible sunburn over half of his face and head.
Smiling, the old man says the sun came out last night – and sang to
him.

Air
Traffic Control, Indianapolis Center. A flight calls in to ask if
there’s any other traffic in Air East 31. Checking the radar
screen, the controller says no, just a TWA L-1011 at 15 miles range
and a DC-9 at 50 miles. The controller switches to broad-band to make
sure as Air East reports traffic at 2 o’clock slightly above and
descending, which checks on the screen. He has no known high-altitude
traffic, but will check low. He asks a colleague to check low
altitude, but Air East 31 calls in again. The traffic isn’t lower –
he’s still above and descending. Can he say aircraft type? That’s
negative – there’s no distinct outline, but it’s rather
brilliant, the brightest anti-collision lights he’s ever seen,
alternating white to red. TWA 517 calls in – it can see the
aircraft too, as bright lights.

A
group of controllers is now crouched around the screen as the reports
come in. Air East 31 doesn’t think it’s a problem as the traffic
has descended 1,500 feet below… wait a second! The traffic has
turned, headed right for his windshield. The collision alert sounds
at Air Traffic Control. Air East 31 is making evasive manouver –
right turn and the controller quickly diverts the other flights to
avoid a catastrophe. A controller orders a subordinate to get on the
horn to the 45th Recon Wing, see what the hell they could
be testing up there. As he makes the call, Air East 31 calls back in
to report the traffic is luminous and exhibiting ‘non-ballistic
motion’. Seriously concerned, the controller gives the go ahead for
the pilot to continue descent at his discretion. The traffic is
approaching head on, ultra-bright and really moving – and right by
us! Now that was close!

The
senior controller joins the group and asks if the pilots want to
report a UFO.

TWA
517: ‘Negative. We don’t want to report.’

Air
East 31: ‘Negative, we don’t want to report one of those either.’
Does he want to file any kind of report? He wouldn’t know what kind
of file to report…

Night
at the Guiler home, Muncie, Indiana. A quiet, starlit sky, the
crickets the only sound in the night. Little Barry stirs in his
sleep. Suddenly, his Charley Chimp begans bashing his cymbals, the
wind begins to blow and Barry’s record player starts all by itself.
The Square Song.

On the shelf, his Blushing Frankenstein drops
his trousers and lights up. This is new! As if on some unseen cue,
little Barry’s other toys all light up and start across the floor.
There’s a light shining, outside his bedroom and he tumbles out of
bed to investigate. The front door’s open, the screen door banging
aimlessly. The fridge is wide open too and all the food’s been
spilled out – and something’s just gone out the doggy-flap in the
kitchen door! Toddling over to see, he sees – something, his
face lighting up in delight.

Upstairs,
Barry’s toy cars chime and whirr their way into his Mother’s
room, her TV on now. Groggily, Jillian Guiler awakens, confused.
Finding her son’s room unoccupied, she hears him giggle and looks
out of her window to see him happily joggling into the garden.

High
overhead, a pin-point light travels across the sky. A plane, perhaps.
Despite her call, he laughs and runs off into the night.

Indiana.
That night. In the den of his home, Lineman Roy Neary is working on
his model railroad, while his son Brad pleads with him to do his
homework for him instead. He doesn’t understand fractions.

All
right; what’s one third of sixty? Not a clue; so Roy places a
boxcar across the tracks – say it’s sixty feet long and he’s
put it one-third of the way across the tracks. And now, he sets
another train in motion. Now, how far does he have to move the boxcar
to avoid a miniature disaster? We may never know, as the train
smashes into the car.

Ronnie,
Roy’s Wife reminds him of his promise; a movie this weekend.

‘And
you also promised Goofy Golf’ chips in Brad. While little Toby
loudly smashes up a doll, Ronnie complains about Roy’s stuff on her
breakfast table, but he’s spotted something; Pinocchio is
playing! Brad doesn’t want to see some dumb cartoon for kids. Roy
asks how old he is; eight. Does he want to make nine? Then he’s
seeing Pinocchio.

Ronnie’s not impressed. After yelling at Toby to
cut it out with the noise, Roy tries democracy. Do they want Goofy
Golf with all the waiting and pushing and shoving or Pinocchio, which
is lots of furry animals, magic and a wonderful time? You guessed it.

The
phone – and it’s Earl for Roy. They’ve got outages all over and
he needs Earl in the field. Ronnie reminds Earl he can’t drive
alone at night, but he’s needed in Tolono. They’re losing power
across the grid - has the power gone there yet? Right on cue –
lights out at the Neary home. All across town, the lights flicker
out.

Back
in Muncie, Jillian Guiler searches the woods for her boy by
torchlight. She’s desperate now, but carries on through the trees.

Sure
enough, Roy Neary is lost, stopping his repair truck to consult a
map. A car pulls up behind and he waves it past, only to get both
barrels about being in the middle of the road. He carries on,
hopelessly lost, the amber light on his cab strobing through the
darkness. Coming to a railway switch, he pulls up to check how lost
he is now. Another set of lights behind and he absent-mindedly waves
them off, lost in his map.

The lights move – but UPWARDS, gliding
silently into the night air. All of a sudden, Roy’s attention is
caught by a line of mailboxes as they begin shaking violently, back
and forth. That’s weird enough, but then his torch, radio and truck
cut out just before an intense light shines down from above,
accompanied by an eerie thrumming.

Risking
a look out of the window, Roy sees an unearthly vehicle, a UFO
gliding overhead, pulses of light searing him painfully. Next thing,
the railway signal begins to wigwag and everything in his truck is
sent flying around, the gauges going crazy and Roy himself lifting
from his seat as if gravity itself had gone haywire.

Then, as
suddenly as it began, it’s over, the light winking out and the
humming noise recedes. Sitting in silence, Roy takes a moment to
gather himself before looking up to see a large craft drifting
silently across the starry-black sky, a single further flash of light
on the road ahead and then nothing. He gets another shock when his
torch comes back on… and yet another when his truck fires back into
life, the radio alive with reports of unexplained aerial sightings
near the Telemark Expressway, out towards Harper Valley. Fired up,
Roy takes off in pursuit of the unknown, but doesn’t see the huge
strangely shaped shadow which flits across the fields. Taking the
off-ramp to Harper Valley East too fast, Roy scrapes along the armco,
chasing shadows.

Little
Barry Guiler, meanwhile, has made it to a raised bend in the road,
where he finds others, waiting. A man sits whistling, his smiling
family in the back of their truck. Waiting. Jillian Guiler climbs up
onto the road just in time to see Roy’s truck coming over the brow
straight towards her son.

Dashing forward, she scoops her boy up and
dives off the road, the truck crashing into a mailbox. Horrified, Roy
goes over to apologise, but Barry is off again, toddling off back
along the road calling ‘Hello.’ What’s with this kid?
Suddenly, a humming sound and the wait is over, a trio of dazzling
UFO’s no bigger than sedans swooping low over the odd assemblage,
brightly coloured lights shining like neon as they tumble through the
air.

Roy is astonished, Barry wants Ice Cream and a smaller UFO, this
no more than a red ball of light hurries along in the wake of it’s
larger travelling companions. Jillian and Roy clear the road to make
way for the three cop cars that come screeching around the hill in
hot pursuit. Neary speaks for everyone; ‘This is nuts.’ And
he takes off after the strange craft.

The
toll booths at the Ohio State line, the attendant dozes as the
automatic barriers begin to raise. Out of nowhere, the odd little
procession of lights flies through, ‘little red’ cheekily
dividing itself to set all the lights to ‘stop’ as it passes
through. The cop cars come racing through, with Roy’s truck. Awake
now, the frustrated attendant tries to tell the receding Roy ‘That’s
Ohio! that’s a quarter!’

The
UFO’s fly along to a bend and straight off it, followed by the
leading cop car who ends up flying into a field.

Skidding to a halt,
the rest of the pack disembarks
to watch, helpless as the uncanny lights split up and soar into the
gathering clouds with a final flickering as of lightning, the lights
abruptly coming on in the valley below. Still, they got a suntan out
of it…

Frantic
with excitement, Roy Neary bursts into his bedroom and wakes Ronnie,
insisting she gets dressed. His work called, they couldn’t reach
him. He turned the radio off, he tells her, handing her some clothes.
It’s four o’clock in the morning – what about the kids? He’ll
get the kids. He wakes little Sylvia, Toby and Brad and hustles them
all into the truck, watched by nosey old Mrs. Harris next door.
Ronnie notices Roy’s sunburn, but gets no answer when she asks what
caused it.

Roy
takes the family out to where he saw the troupe of UFO’s, but
there’s nothing, just a distant storm. He tries to describe what he
saw, but ‘ice cream cone’
is all he can manage. Sadly, Ronnie comes to him; doesn’t he think
she’s taking this really well? She remembers when they came to
places like this to look at each other. To snuggle. Roy is still
watching the skies, hoping for a sign, more lights, anything – but
Ronnie is determined and husband and wife kiss. And snuggle.

Day.
The Gobi Desert, Mongolia and a trio
of camel riders come across yet another incredible sight, this one of
human origin; a small fleet of three UN Wagoneers
and helicopter escort racing over the dunes. Excitable locals wave
them onwards to their goal, a team of photographers in awe at what
they have been summoned there to film. For there, in this remote
desert, far from the nearest water, is a ship, the Cotopaxi.
Laughlin arrives, asking why it’s here, but the team member with
him just can’t believe it. It’s the Cotopaxi!

The
headline reads ‘UFO’s Over Five Counties’. Anxiously,
Ronnie Neary carefully cuts
the article out. And screws
it up.

Armed with a ping pong bat and a camera, Brad and his pals
sneak in on Roy as he brushes his teeth. Whack! The bat hits the
target and with a face-full of foaming toothpaste, Roy chases them
out King Kong style. Ronnie chides the boys for stealing her camera.
One of the kids comments Roy’s suntan makes him look like a 50-50
bar, but Roy is pre-occupied with his shaving foam. The pile of foam
in hand almost looks… he starts to shape it, intently. Ronnie’s
found some overnight tan, but Roy isn’t interested, asking what the
foam reminds her of. Fine; she’ll tell everyone he fell asleep
under the tanning lamp.

Brad
wants to know; are ‘they’ for real? And Ronnie tells him no, to
Roy’s bemusement. She doesn’t want to know about any of it. They
argue; the kids believe, Ronnie insists they don’t and Roy just
wants to know what’s going on. He follows her into the boy’s
bedroom. She doesn’t want to listen, but he saw something last
night that he can’t explain. So did she. He’s going out there
again tonight. No he’s not. Yes, he is. The
Neary boys squabble, but the sound of their Mother’s anguish gets
their attention. She’s on the phone. Roy got fired.* Dumfounded,
Roy listens to her as she tells him they didn’t even want to talk
to him.

*No
Union hearing? Never mind. Only a movie, right?

Dharamshala,
India.
Claude Lacombe, Laughlin and a team arrive to find a village in
turmoil, people running everywhere and a concerted chanting rising
from the crowd sitting cross-legged before a Sadhu. They sing a
five-toned chant, over and over joyfully. A crowd of villagers surges
forward amongst the seated singers, the team among them. Lacombe
finds a village elder and asks him ‘From what direction did your
people hear these sounds?.’ The question is put to the Sadhu, who
strides to the top of a mound from where the elder calls the question
down to the assemblage. As one, a multitude of fingers points
skywards.

At
a specially-convened conference, the assembled experts rise for a
standing ovation as the American team leader plays the tape of the
Dharamshala chanting and Lacombe takes the stage. He apologizes for
his poor English with a joke and informs them of a significant
breakthrough.

Using Zoltán
Kodály’s method, which assigns hand gestures to musical tones to
teach deaf children about music, he demonstrates
the hand signals for each of the five tones,
as
the attendees are given Kodály
folders
with the word ‘Mayflower’ emblazed on a triangular design.

First,
one at a time and then for the whole sequence, Lacombe makes the
appropriate signs for the tones, followed by a synthesized version.
But what do these tones mean?

Night.
Roy fumbles and batters the film into his instamatic, in preparation
as, along with a large group of people, he waits on the hill. The
old folks play cards, the younger ones hang out. Badly
sunburned, Jillian Guiler arrives to join him. They introduce each
other properly and he apologises for nearly running little Barry
down. They compare ‘sunburns’ and she goes back to check on her
boy, who is busy making a mud-castle. When Roy sees it, he freezes in
recognition. It’s weird, he tells Jillian, but every since
yesterday, on the road, he’s been seeing the same shape. Laying
down to join them, she sees it too, drawing
a finger through the mud, sculpting, shaping. Somehow, Roy knows what
this is, but can’t get a handle on it. It means something.

A
shout goes up; here they come! Two lights, out of the Northwest.
Awe-struck, the sky-watchers stand as the lights approach. The
whistling man from the other night holds up a home-made placard; Stop
and be friendly.

With a blast from the rotors, the two helicopters
send dust, playing cards and everything that’s not bolted down
flying in all directions. Roy stands against the storm, watching as
the Hueys hover, spotlights trained.

The
Echo Deep Space Station, Goldstone, California. The gigantic radio
telescope dish is receiving
a pattern of numbers.
An
elder team
leader listens as the station director explains they received two
fifteen-minute signals, a
hundred and four rapid pulses, then a five second interval after
which forty pulses. Next came a five second interval and thirty.
After sixty seconds of silence; a new set of numbers. He leads the
way into a secure area and a high-tech mobile perspex command center.
Where are these signals coming from? Right in the neighborhood; seven
seconds’ light-travel time distant. They join Lacombe and Laughlin
at a teleprinter as the director informs that they’ve been sending
out the now-familiar five-tone pattern for weeks now, receiving these
numbers by way of reply.

Disappointed,
the team leader postulates this could mean the ‘India sounds’ met
a dead end; there’s so much they don’t know. But Laughlin isn’t
just an Interpreter – he’s a Cartographer… and he’s holding
the printout with interest.

‘Excuse
me.’ Laughlin has to repeat himself. Before he got paid to speak
French, he used to read maps. This first number is a longitude. These
are Earth co-ordinates. The director remembers there’s a globe in
the County Supervisor’s office and they kick the door in to
unceremoniously roll the oversized globe down the hall, ignoring a
colleague’s protests that it’s a $2,500 globe. They hump the
thing along to the command center and while they argue and chatter
like excited kids, Laughlin traces his way to a location in Wyoming.

The team leader orders a geodetic survey map of Wyoming; he wants
this nailed to the square yard. The hubbub rises again, while,
unnoticed, Lacombe has some important information to impart; a
headset clamped to one ear. Ignored, he sets a tape recorder in
motion and sits at the synthesizer keyboard to play the five-tones.

The
quintet of tones is a hit; even little Barry’s playing it
on his glockenspiel. Xylophone. Whatever. His
Mother is obsessively sketching a rock tower, but none of the images
seems right, none seem to match the image she sees in her head. She
collects them to take out for the trash as a distant rumble of
thunder brings Barry to the window, expectant.

His cry of delight
alerts her and the neighborhood dogs all join in the chorus. A bloom
of light illuminates the roiling clouds and, delighted Barry calls
out ‘Toys.’ As a terrified Jillian edges back towards her home,
several brilliant spheres of radiance emerge from the clouds and
glide towards it. Taking her son by the arm, she barricades the door,
shuts and fastens the windows.

As
his mother dashes about securing the house, Barry watches as an
intense reddish-orange light shines through the keyhole.

To her
horror, he opens the door to the radiance and, moving him aside she
shuts and bolts it.

Noises
upstairs now, scraping and knocking. Dust falls down from the chimney
into the fireplace. While his Mother is frightened, Barry is happy,
calling out; ‘You can come and play now.’A stark white light is
thrown down the chimney – plucking up the courage, Jillian grabs
the damper
and pulls it firmly shut, before the light can descend. A blind rolls
up and the boy thinks the Sun’s here. A burst of lights from
outside a window sets her record player into life. Chances
Are,
Johnny Mathis.

A
carpet flips back, something’s in the floor vents now. Snatching
Barry up into her arms, Jillian stops, turns. The screws in the vent
are unscrewing, as if by an unseen force. She screams for them to go
away, but the vent merely flips open with a burst of smoke. Dragging
furniture over it is only going to delay the inevitable; her Hoover
lights up and runs across the room, the TV’s on and her frantic
attempt to call for help just gets those five-tones down the phone.
If
that weren’t enough, her kitchen appliances choose the moment to
join the party, jigging and dancing in an insane display.

Something
bigger now, descending menacingly from the night outside, noise and
lights filling the house. Suddenly, Barry’s climbed through the
doggy-flap and distraught, poor Jillian grabs at his legs for a tug
of war with – whatever
is beyond. She’s not weak – a Mother’s strength is famous, but
she can’t compete with the force out there.

The moment it’s over,
it’s over, the kitchen settling down and only a hysterical,
distraught woman chasing a receding light beneath the clouds remains.
Barry Guiler is gone.

At
the local US Air Force facility, Jillian faces a barrage of questions
from the press; The Nearys are there and she tells Roy what happened
to Barry, while Ronnie would prefer not to be there at all, hiding
behind a large pair of sunglasses. Turning away from the pack, she
makes her exit in an elevator. The woman at the desk calls everyone’s
attention; they can go in now.

A
large conference room and a Press Officer, Major
Benchley
makes a dramatic announcement; ‘This is a flying saucer’, holding
up a photograph of the object to gasps and excitement. Several people
in the room swear to it that’s the one they saw, to the amusement
of the Air Force man who then holds up the pewter saucer he had one
of his kids throw across the lawn for the photo. Yuk-yuk! As the
sky-watchers from the other night sit at the long table, he moves on
from his little joke to explain last year, Americans shot more than
seven billion photographs. Spending $6.6 billion for the equipment
and developing. Now, with all those shutters clicking, where is the
indisputable evidence? Everyone
wants a piece of this, but a newsman tells the Major he’s been in
the business for years and never managed to photograph a plane crash
as it happened either, nor an auto crash for that matter.

Earnestly,
an official in a suit (oh-oh) addresses the room; it would be fun to
believe in all kinds of things, from mental telepathy to time travel,
immortality and even Santa Claus. (Like
we hadn’t guessed he was bad; boo!) Now,
he knows it would be no fun to go home today and say; ‘Guess what
happened today? I was in the shopping center and there was this
bright light – and I rushed outside – and it was an airplane.’
Piqued, Roy tells him he didn’t want to see this. The suit tells
him he feels otherwise, he’s spent fifteen years looking for damn
silly lights in the night sky. He’d like to, because he believes in
life elsewhere.

Another
guest asks why the U.S.A.F. doesn’t just admit to conducting secret
tests in the Foothills area? The suit agrees it would be easier to
say as much, but it simply isn’t the case. He doesn’t know what
he saw. Roy isn’t buying any of it; they can’t fool the people by
agreeing with them!. Helpfully, the whistling man chips in, claiming
to have seen Bigfoot once. The cameras whip round as he makes the
most of his fifteen seconds; 1951. Sequoia National Park. Had
a foot on her 37 inches long, heel to toe (The kids present love this
bit) Made a sound he wouldn’t want to hear twice in his life. Roy’s
delighted to be in the same bracket as this balloon.

The
conference/snow-job continues, but Roy’s pre-occupied with the
newspaper; not so much Jillian’s front page cosmic kidnapping story
as doodling. He’s doodling a mountain in pencil. The Air Force
mouthpiece wraps it up; UFO’s do not represent a direct physical
threat to our national security. We do not support them – and we
encourage you not to. The pencil breaks.

A
Secret facility, piled high with mysterious crates. Indiana Jo–
sorry, wrong film, I mean Dodge vans screech up and disgorge their
human cargo; astronaut types in red jumpsuits, emblazoned with the
stars and stripes and the Mayflower design. Amid tight Army
security, the Buzz Aldrin fan club boards a waiting Air Force coach.
The elder team
leader is here, dictating his last-minute instructions to avoid
chaos, the perspex command
center being prepped behind him. He pauses to watch the Mayflower
team embark; if this mission fully develops, he gets white-knuckled
just thinking about what might be ahead for those folks…

The
junior team leader is busy explaining the itinerary to Lacombe via
Laughlin; there’s a limo waiting to take them to the helipad for
their flight. A group clustered around a table debates the method to
be used, a Special
Forces man listens intently;
Major
‘Wild Bill’ Walsh. One
likes the flash flood ruse, but where would they get the water? A dam
about to burst? What about contaminated water? That affects people,
crops, animals… the list so far includes forest fires, the
aforementioned flooding and disease. A plague epidemic? Well, no-ones
going to believe that…
as the Masters of Disaster continue debating how best to fool the
good people of Wyoming, the camera zooms in on the map laid across
the table. To a place marked ‘Devil’s Tower.’

Finally, one of
them hits on it; Anthrax – farming country, lots of sheep. Yes!
Wild
Bill
likes the anthrax idea. Anthrax
it is… but
there’s always some joker who thinks himself immune. What he needs
is something so scary it’ll clear 300 square miles of every living
Christian soul.

Piggly
Wiggly, Coca Cola and Baskin Robbins. Not exactly names to inspire
terror - but wait! These are just the covers being hastily applied
to various military trucks being used in the decoy operation. Guided
by a man with a light-up baton (apparently essential to all
successful operations) the convoy rolls from the base.

Dinner
at the Neary home; Ronnie passes round the mashed potatoes. Little
Silvia complains she hates these potatoes; there’s a dead fly in
hers.* When it’s his turn, Roy doles out a lump of mash. That image
again. Compulsively, he scoops out a pile and starts sculpting,
watched by a fascinated Brad and a mortified Ronnie. Suddenly
realising the whole family is fixated on his bizarre behavior, he
clutches a hand to his brow, Brad in tears now. What’s wrong with
Dad? Tearfully,
Roy tries to explain. It’s okay. He’s still Dad. But this means
something – it’s important.

*An
unscripted moment which was included in the film. Richard Dreyfuss is
clearly struggling to keep a straight face in the scene.

Alone
in the den, Roy has made a clay model of his vision on the model
train layout. But it’s not right, it’s not right… he slaps
balls of clay on, anxious to get it right. Grabbing a bent fork, he
begins scraping the tines along the flanks of the miniature mountain,
shaping, shaping. But it’s still not right. At the end now, he
storms into the garden to yell up at the night sky; ‘What is it?’
Tell
me.

That
night Ronnie Leary awakes alone, switching on the bedside light to
discover it’s past four. There’s sounds of sobbing and the shower
in their bathroom and, finding it locked, she knocks and asks Roy to
open it. No response. Furious, she goes for a nail file as little
Silvia toddles from her room, confused. Opening the door from
outside, she throws it open to reveal Roy, fully clothed under the
shower. He can’t even look at her., but manages to speak. ‘I
don’t think I know what’s happening to me.’ Concerned, she
grabs a towel, shuts off the faucet. She
suggests they go to family therapy; he’s impressed his watch still
works despite the water. Brad is there and, angry, he slams the
bathroom door to and fro repeatedly screaming ‘You crybaby!’ at
his Dad. Ronnie shouts at him to get out and Silvia screams.
Desperately Ronnie shouts. She doesn’t know what this is.

Wrapped
in his towel, Roy says he’s really scared – he needs her. She’s
had enough of this bullshit; it’s turning the house upside down. He
pleads for her to just cuddle him, but she’s at her wit’s end.
She hates him! None of their friends call any more! He’s out of
work, doesn’t care; he’s ruining them! Tearful, Brad watches from
his bedroom as Ronnie takes her turn locking herself in the bathroom.
He shuts his door too.* Back with the object of his fixation, Roy
stares at the clay mountain in the dark, finally
falling asleep.

*And
yes, listen closely and you can just
about hear Spielberg’s voice telling him to close the door.

Bleary,
Roy awakes in the same spot to find Silvia’s watching one of the
old Bug’s Bunny cartoons with the Martian. Is he going to yell at
her? He shakes his head. Coming to his senses, he pulls down the
assorted UFO clipping’s he put up. Calling out to Ronnie, he tells
her everything’s fine, it’ll be like it was. Grabbing the hated
clay mountain, he pulls hard to remove it, but just the summit comes
away, leaving a flat… wait. That’s it. That’s
it…

Sleeping
in the boy’s room, Ronnie is awakened as Roy bumps his head against
the window. He’s busy tearing the plants from the soil outside. She
starts to apologize then sees what he’s up to. Jesus. Miserably,
she asks what he’s doing, but he insists she’ll love this,
hurling the plants straight through the kitchen window. Roy shovels a
wheelbarrow full of dirt in
afterwards and
Toby wants to know if they can shovel some in his window
after. Holding onto herself, a frightened Ronnie pleads with him to
stop, but if he does? That’s
when he’s gonna need a Doctor. The neighbors are starting to notice
all’s not well in la Casa Neary and, gathering up armfuls of bricks
he tells the plaintive Ronnie not to be scared. He feels really good.
The bricks go into the kitchen sink. Helpfully, Toby launches one in
too.

Spotting
the arrival of the garbage truck, Roy dashes to the trash can and has
a tug of war with the garbage collector, dumping the trash and
retrieving the bin to add to the collection. By now, half the street
has gathered to watch the shenanigans, but Roy’s not done. Chicken
wire! Marching over to Mrs. Harris’ ornamental pond, he steals her
chicken wire fencing. He offers to pay, but she aims her hair-dryer
defensively; he can take it. His
eager assistant Toby has to be threatened with a maternal smacking to
stop him ripping up a length. Freed from captivity, Mrs. Harris’
geese make a bid for freedom, Ronnie’s futile effort to get them to
‘stay’ being met with honks of disdain.

The
last straw; Ronnie
packs the kids into the car. They’re going to her sister’s.
That’s
crazy, she’s not even dressed. She screeches off in reverse, Roy
chasing after her. On the street, he tries to stop her, but is thrown
from the hood and dumped onto the pavement. The whole street watching
in silence, Roy collects himself and strides back to the house,
offering a curt ‘Morning’ as he goes. Tossing a final plant in,
he climbs in after it, drawing up the ladder afterwards. The
drawbridge to Castle
Neary is raised.

Dazed,
almost in a stupor, Roy adds the finishing touches to the mountain,
this version being ceiling-high. Days of our Lives plays on the tv.
Roy takes a break to look out the window. Like
sand through the hourglass… so are the Days of our Lives.
Looking out at them, washing the car, doing the lawn, the normality
of suburban life they seem far removed from Roy’s reality. Or is he
from theirs? Somehow he’s not one of them anymore. Almost with
regret, he shuts the curtain on the world outside. On what he was.
Still,
he misses his family. The bud commercial closes and a news report; a
rail disaster. Roy’s busy on the phone to Ronnie. At
Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, a trainload of dangerous chemical gas went
off the rails and forced the widest area evacuation… Whenever
she wants him to. Tomorrow is fine - area
closed to the public - He
can do other things. We
go now to Charles McDonald for a live report…

As
Roy pleads with his wife, the report goes to Devil’s Tower where
the Army and National Guard are supervising the evacuation of
thirty-five to fifty thousand people. Roy tells her it was a joke.
Charles
tells us they’re
assured the danger will be over within seventy-two hours. Anything
she wants; he’ll do. Roy, that is, not Chuck. Chuck’s busy enough
in Wyoming. We see Devil’s Tower on the tv. That’s odd; we see it
in Roy’s living room too. Roy pleads with her to meet face to face,
but she’s not ready and hangs up, to his frustration. Finally, Roy
looks at the tv and sees it. The image of his obsession.

In
her room at the Hopi Motor Inn, Jillian Guiler is watching too. The
wall above her bed is papered with sketches she’s made and she too
has an answer to the mystery of the image. The tv spools it’s lies,
but neither Roy nor Jillian are listening. They know.

In
his rented
Ford LTD Wagon,
Roy tries to drive and map read, the radio issuing the new area
restrictions from the U.S. Army Materiel Command. Basically, every
road Roy might hope to use is off-limits. He rolls towards the town
of Moorcroft, Wyoming, covering the windscreen with his map,
frustrated as ever by the challenges of paper-based navigation. Horns
blaring alrt him to the danger of the oncoming traffic. It’s all
oncoming; he’s the only one headed that way, against a tide of
fleeing citizenry. A soldier tries to stop
him, but he plays dumb and keeps moving.

At
Gillette train station, crowds wait to board a train, some in
home-made masks worn in the hope of avoiding the effects of the
deadly gas spill. A voice on a tannoy reads out the boarding
procedure as everyone does their best to ignore it and clambers
aboard anyway. Already, the roof of the carriages are packed with the
more agile evacuees. As is people weren’t enough, some cowboys on
horseback and their herd are waiting for their train. A hustler
peddles gas masks at $45, ‘early warning systems’ (birds) at $20.
Why, even his dog has a gas mask – surely any of these folks are
worth more than a dog? Exiting his rental, Roy finds himself in the
midst of barely restrained chaos.

As
the horde hands up suitcases and bags containing their precious
possessions to others already aboard the train, Roy’s name is being
called. It’s Jillian, lost
somewhere in the tumult. The voice over the tannoy urges an orderly
evacuation, but the people are close to panic; a dangerous time.
Soldiers help citizens onto a flat-bed – anything so long as it’s
out of here. Finally, Roy spots her; she’s being helped onto the
train against her will, two well-meaning soldiers push-pulling her
aboard. She breaks clear, running to him, an MP giving her up as a
bad lot with a shake of his head. The two embrace as the crowd surges
around them.

In
Roy’s rental, the pair pull off the road. What’s he doing? The
only way to get back in is to go cross-country, through the fence.
Suiting
action to word, he guns it, tearing through the fence into the
countryside, driving like a man possessed. Another fence falls foul
of Roy’s enthusiastic approach and they crunch down onto a dirt
road. Distractedly, Jillian tells Roy the Police dragged the river
for Barry – she told them he wasn’t in the river, but they did it
all the same. She checks Roy’s
early warning system; the
birdshe
was suckered into seem
happy enough in their
cage. They’re approaching some wooden barriers – the
Police went round every house for five miles
– crunch
– looking
in backyard refrigerators
– now on a blacktop – asked
her if she’d seen any strangers in the neighbourhood. Roy
laughs at the irony. The car screeches to a halt before a sturdy log
and barbed-wire barrier. Spellbound, the two get out and go down and
up an earth embankment to get their first look at Devil’s Tower –
and
this time not in a vision.

Magnificent;
no other word for the sight that greets them. Geologists use words
like ‘butte’ and ‘igneous rock’, but ‘magnificent’ is the
only word for Devil’s Tower. Jillian can’t believe it’s real,
but it is. Roy suggests they get some gas and get down there. As
they bump through another barrier, Roy spots something; dead horses
by the side of the road. Then dead cows. Worried, Jillian checks the
early warning birdies; both are happy. Roy tells he the whole thing’s
a put-on, guaranteed. And then they both reach for their gas masks.
The rental’s brakes screech as Roy slows down to roll past the dead
sheep, but the proximity of the tower is a strong pull and he goes
on. With
another squeal of rubber, he just manages to stop at the road block.
Two military vans and a jeep, teeming with soldiers in white Haz-Mat
suits. Ordering the pair out, they ask if they are o.k. Furiously,
Roy refuses to be manhandled. They’re fine! ‘According to my
birds the only bad air here is you guys farting around!’ Reaching
into the car, one of the team removes the birds, both very dead.

The
white suits shepherd the couple into the two vans, separating them,
much to their consternation. Metal
doors slam shut and another opens; we’re now at a secure facility,
Roy sat in a small steel room with only a white suit and a tape
recorder for company. Not for long though, as Laughlin and Lacombe
enter to join him at the little table, a third man, Robert joining
them to sit in for Mr. White Suit who has left. Laughlin introduces
them, explaining they have little time and need answers from him,
that are honest, direct and to the point. He has a question; where’s
Jillian?. Ignoring this, Lacombe asks via his interpreter if he
realizes the danger
he and Jillian have risked.
In coming here, he’s exposed himself to toxic gas. ‘Well, I’m
alive.’That’s
true, but if the prevailing winds had been blowing from the South
instead of the North? This conversation would not be taking place. In
a corner, Roy digs his heels in; there’s nothing wrong with the
air, he states, defiantly. What makes him say that? He just knows.
Speaking in English, Lacombe says ‘Go outside and me make a liar.’
On the back foot somewhat, Roy wants to speak to the man in charge –
but Laughlin insists Mr. Lacombe is the highest authority. But he’s
not even an American!

Ignoring
the slight, Lacombe asks (Via Laughlin) if Roy is an artist or a
painter? No
Has he been experiencing a persistent, though not disagreeable
ringing in his ears? Also
no.
Headaches, Migraines? Yeah.
An
irritation in your eyes and sinuses?
Yeah. Hives?
Allergies? Burning on your face or body? Yes
– who are you people? They
show him one of Jillian’s Devil’s Tower pieces, but he dismisses
it – who are
you people? One more question. Has he recently had a Close Encounter?
A Close Encounter with something very unusual? Who
are you people…

Lacombe
lays down photo-booth style snapshots of a group of people, asking if
they are strangers to Roy. All, but Jillian. And
the two of them felt compelled to be here? Roy agrees – they might
say that. But
what did he expect to find? Angrily, he replies ‘An answer. That’s
not crazy, is it?’. The two experts discuss this in Lacombe’s
native French. Hold it, says Roy; is that all? He has a couple of
thousand God-damn questions; standing now, he wants to speak to
someone in charge, lodge a complaint! They have no right to make
people crazy – do they think he investigates every Walter Cronkite
story he sees? If this is just nerve gas, how come he knows
everything in such detail? He’s never been here before, how come he
knows so much? What the Hell is going on around here! Banging his
fist on the table, he asks again; who the Hell are you people?

A
small
convoy speeds towards the Decontamination Camp near the base of
Devil’s Tower. Roy, in gas mask is led from the holding area by two
burly soldiers in white suits, protesting as loudly as the mask
allows as he’s put onto a waiting Huey. There, the people from the
snapshots sit, waiting to be removed. Also masked-up, Lacombe
approaches the pilots to tell them there’s a five minute delay.
Sitting there, Roy looks at the faces looking back; kindly faces,
expectant. And Jillian. Jillian’s there too, waiting for him to
make a decision.

Lacombe
has his own problems, Wild
Bill
wants to know just why he had twelve people brought to the
Decontamination Camp and not the Evacuation Center. Answering in
English, Lacombe replies ‘Because this means something.’ And
amusingly, Laughlin repeats the phrase, stuck in Translator mode. In
French now, the expert relays through his faithful aide that these
people have come from all over their country… to a place they have
been told will endanger their lives. Why? Major
Walsh feels it could be a subversion attempt; send in the fanatics,
the cultists, Christ knows what, but Lacombe dismisses the idea,
turning to Robert who hands him the contents of a valise. These are
the drawings of Devil’s Tower made by the ‘chosen twelve’. This
is a small group of people who have a shared vision in common;
raising the blinds to reveal the Tower outside, Lacombe adds in his
broken English ‘It’s still a mystery to me why they are here.
Even they do not know why.’

Outside
on the pan, Roy and the others sit, the only sound their laboured
breathing in the masks. Finally, he plucks up the courage. Yanking
off his mask, he takes a deep breath. And dies, in terrible agon…
sorry, just kidding; he’s fine. The turbines begin to spool up as
the chopper prepares for flight. Turning to Jillian, he calls to her
and, faithfully, she nods, removing her own mask despite the plea
from another passenger not to. Roy tries to tell the others there’s
nothing wrong with the air – the Army’s getting rid of them
because they don’t want any witnesses. A
lively and short debate ensues, some not wanting to go against
authority, while a guy from L.A. declares the air’s better than
back home. Roy asks how many of them are for getting out of there?
Just Jillian and Mr. West Coast.

Inside
the office, Lacombe looks through the blinds at the spinning rotors.
He doesn’t know what’s happening and he must know what’s going
on. He continues; for every one of these anxious, anguished people
who’ve come here, there must be hundreds of others also touched by
the vision who never made it this far. They never watched the
television, or did so and failed to make the psychic connexion.
Hearing this, Wild Bill claims it a co-incidence and not scientific.
Pausing,
Lacombe speaks in his best English, with passion and focus. ‘Listen
to me Major Walsh, it is an event sociological.’

Roy,
Jillian and L.A. Guy make a run for it, spotted through the window by
Lacombe as they trot past technicians unloading ominous crates marked
‘Lockheed’, ‘TRW’
and ‘Rockwell’ - aerospace company hardware in Piggly Wiggly and
Ice Cream trucks? Lacombe watches the trio’s departure with a wry
expression. Now out of the camp and headed for Devil’s Tower,
there’s time for a hasty introduction; we can call L.A. Guy Larry
Butler from hereon.

Back
at the camp, Major Walsh hasn’t noticed anything awry, addressing
the passengers to tell them to keep their masks on until their out of
danger. The door slides shut and their adventure is at an end, the
Huey lifting off with its human cargo. As soon as it’s airborne, he
strides over to a waiting jeep to
join Lacombe and Laughlin and they all remove their masks, proving
beyond a doubt the air’s just peachy in Wyoming. A call over the
radio for the Major; it’s his superior. He promises he’ll have
the rest of them off the mountain in one hour. The voice over the net
orders him to make an infra-red photo analysis of the Northern Face.
Yes
Sir; already ordered. The
boss has more; he doesn’t like it, they’re in enough trouble with
the Cattlemen as it is, but if he can’t clear the escapees from the
mountain by 20:00 hrs, he’s to start dusting – with EZ-4. EZ-4?
Me
neither.Amazingly,
despite all the noise on camp, Lacombe hears this from where he’s
standing and wants to know the same thing we do; Wild Bill explains
helpfully it’s a sleep aerosol, same thing they used on the
livestock. They’ll sleep for six
hours and wake up with a headache, that’s all.

Wild
Bill marches off, but Lacombe is persistent; they didn’t choose
this place, these people; they were invited! Laughlin is left
shouting this at the Major’s retreating back. Alone
with his interpreter, Lacombe states ‘They belong here more than
we.’

The
threesome climbs the mountain, the camp in the distance, choppers
taking off in pursuit now. It’s hard work and, leaning against a
tree, Larry quips he should never have given up jogging. Urgently,
Roy points to a notch in the mountain; they could make it. The
choppers fly past nearby, a voice on the crowd control system warning
them the authority in the park is superseded by the United States
Government. Pausing to debate routes, Jillian favors a ravine, but
Roy knows this mountain like it’s in his living room – that leads
to a 350 feet drop, straight down. On the other side, there’s a box
canyon he wants to head for. A chopper side-slips right overhead as
he explains his route; Jillian never imagined the mountain in three
dimensions – she only did paintings of the one side. L.A. Larry
didn’t recall any canyons in his doodles. Roy says next time, try
sculpturing. Larry points out they’re facing a good hour’s climb
and they get moving again.

The
speaker blares it’s ineffective warning again as elite
troops begin patrolling up after the fugitives* and they call it in;
nothing to report at mid-station, but there’s plenty of hiding
places up there and they need more men to cover the area in one hour.
The reply is terse; get everybody off the Northern face and inform
the Dark Side of the Moon they’re going to dust. Dark Side of the
what now?

*You
don’t need military experience to see how much easier it would have
been to drop them higher up by chopper to cut the trio off.

The
three climbers pause, gasping for breath close to the mountain proper
now. Ominous silver canisters are being loaded onto the skids of the
choppers at the ‘Decontamination Camp’ under Wild Bill’s
watchful gaze. A chopper buzzes overhead as the climbers take cover
amongst the crags. Roy watches as another flies around the mountain,
an underslung jeep suspended from it. Something’s
going on on the other side of this mountain….

Fully
loaded, the dust bird takes off for the mountain, into the gathering
gloom. There’s not long until nightfall now. Larry’s falling
behind, Roy calling back to him to come on, but he scrapes his way
onto a large rock and stays there, exhausted. The dust bird clatters
past and spots him sitting there. It begins another pass, releasing
the LZ-4 agent, birds dropping from the vegetation, unconscious.

Seeing the powder coming down, Larry calls up to the others; ‘They’re
just crop dusting – Los Angeles!’ Jillian is worried for Larry,
but Roy urges her not to look back, to keep going. Larry’s going to
sleep now.

Rounding
the slope, Roy loses his grip to fall some way down, as the dust bird
comes around for another sweep. They’re only ten feet from the top,
says Jillian. Searchlights on the far side of the Tower are now
clearly visible. Whatever’s there, they’re close to it. Numb
with fatigue, he clambers back up to reach for her outstretched hand,
but slips back down into the path of the chopper. It’s headed
straight for where he lies. Spurring him on, Jillian reaches down as
the dust is released once more, grabs his hand and the two jump over
the ridge to the other side.

Safe
from the incapacitating agent, the pair look down at an incredible
sight. The box canyon Roy mentioned is alive with activity, ablaze
with electrical lights and lined with a horse-shoe crescent of
portable structures. A faceless voice on a tannoy conducts a sound
check – this really is
the Dark Side of the Moon!

Gentlemen,
Ladies, take your positions please. This is not a drill. I repeat –
this is not a drill. The
voice calls for the lights in the arena to be turned down sixty
percent and the generator whine subsides in accordance with the
reduced lighting. Incongruously, the voice doubts they could have
asked for a more beautiful evening, as section by section, a runway
blinks into existence, leading off from the canyon. Ok,
watch the skies please. We now show uncorrelated targets moving from
the North-Northwest. Turning
to that direction, Roy watches as seven
points of light converge high above the tower, to form the shape of
the Big Dipper, letting out a delighted laugh at the realisation. A
shooting star flashes across the sky, then another, which stops and
reverses its course, breaking apart into smaller components of
brilliance.

Roy
spots a group of three smallish, brilliant UFO’s gliding down
behind them – he’s glad Jillian sees them too; he’s not crazy.
They float down past them to the arena, followed by the impish
‘little red’.

Down
in the computer control room, Lacombe sees the UFO’s too and goes
out to get a closer look, the inevitable Laughlin and Robert in
attendance. The announcer spools off some nonsense about D-Class
personnel and the assembled battery of cameras whirr into life,
recording this momentous event. A technician, awed, steps hesitantly
towards a large synthesizer keyboard and dons his headset. As
the three craft hover silently, waiting, technicians swarm over
various gizmos, doing highly technical things. Finally, they are
ready, the keyboard technician plays the first tone, a corresponding
red light showing on a large panel mounted above and behind him. One
by one, he plays the notes relayed to him by the command center, each
accompanied by its assigned colour. Thus, the first tentative
communication between human and alien.

There’s
no response, the elder team leader observes. Must be why he’s the
Boss… The voice over the radio net tells us some sciencey stuff
about milligals (Something to do with acceleration; I Go-Ogle’d it)
and they try the five-tones again. And again, Lacombe giving the hand
signals for each tone. Up in the cheap seats, Jillian and Roy watch
and listen; she knows that tune. Faster, says Lacombe, walking out
towards the waiting craft. Frustrated, he signals; faster! Waving his
arms towards the visitors in anticipation.

And then response! In
turn, the unearthly trio plays their response, rising into the air as
they do so. Panel flashing, tones ringing, the synthesizer tech plays
to the crowd, fingers a blur. His audience are delighted it seems,
blaring tonal responses and rotating happily in place. They’ve come
a long way; imagine the disappointment if we were too dumb to even
speak! As if satisfied with the response, the three ships break
formation and fly off, to spontaneous applause from the assembled
technicians and suits.

It’s
all over; First Contact has been made and it’s relief and
handshakes all around. It’s Miller Time… but something has
attracted the attention of the radar array and, up on the hill, the
now-reatreating couple too. The huge cloud that has appeared
stretches off into the sky to both sides of Devil’s Tower, roiling
and bubbling unnaturally, billowing like some uncanny smoke.

One of
the UFO’s has returned, lights flashing as if signalling, guiding…
but guiding what? Brilliant pulses of colored light answer from
inside the cloud. Roy whispers to Jillian, beckoning her back to
their vantage point. Like children sneaking in to an adult’s party,
they creep down closer, hidden from view by just one small rocky
ridge now. Normally, the sight of one UFO hanging there in plain
sight would be enough to guarantee anyone’s attention, but now?
Most of the crowd are staring fixedly at the sky, in anticipation…

...and
they aren’t to be disappointed; the group of ships breaking through
from the cloud swoop down in a cascade of neon, dazzling, beguiling
and all seemingly a different shape.

It’s chaos, people dashing in
all directions as the ethereal machines swoosh low overhead. People
are forced to duck as these craft hum and rotate slowly ahead, as if
checking everything’s okay – some of the techs having the
presence of mind to at least snatch some quick readings. One pauses
to hover directly above Lacombe and emit some strobing flashes that
could almost be mistaken for the occupant snatching some quick
holiday souvenirs… speaking of which, the backroom boys are
delighted with the footage so far; keep those reloads coming!

Mischievously,
Roy suggests they get closer, but Jillian is fine where she is. We
can’t stay here, he says. She can – because Barry’s not here.
She’s just not ready for this – it’s her son she came for.
Apologetically, Roy has to get down there. She understands.
Hesitantly, they kiss, but it’s the kiss of two good friends
parting company, perhaps regret at what might have been. He takes his
leave of this free spirit as another floats overhead, scrambling down
the rocks to find his answers.

Data
control is chipping in as Roy steals into the party, unseen. They
monitor no biologic hazards, which is nice. Range safety clear. The
UFO’s have all departed, but the keyboard technician keeps himself
busy with the quintones again; does he do requests? There’s nothing
out there now, the melody dying out on a dejected note. Lacombe
stands alone in the center of the arena, wondering if this is it.
Jillian climbs back to the original vantage point she shared with Roy
and all you can hear is the night wind. Until the faint rumble of
thunder, that is. Nearest to the sound, Jillian turns and is
awe-stuck by the sight that first illuminates her face and then casts
a shadow over it.

Gigantic,
easily the size of a modest city. Imagine the Houston Astrodome
resting on an oil refinery floating and slowly spinning, the whole
lit with a hundred thousand lights. Roy can only stare as the
monumental structure thrums in stately progress over the tower
towards the arena. Even the men of science are left speechless,
standing in mute awe at the spectacle that is dominating the scene.
As the leviathan nears, more detail is visible and it is clear this
ship was built for many occupants.

Those on the ground take an
involuntary step back as the shadow of this huge ship falls across
the arena. Roy makes it down to ground level, to be confronted by a
technician at the run – he needn’t worry, the man is beside
himself with fright and just wants to hide in one of the
porta-potties. When you gotta go…

Thanks
to the Best diversion in History, Roy’s able to mingle among the
authorised personnel, totally unnoticed as, majestically, the ship
rotates around the horizontal, inverting and lowering itself. Guess
‘they’ have travel mugs.

The dome is now just thirty feet or so
from the arena floor and the assemblage are forced to don sunglasses,
so intense is the radiance streaming from the ship. Still lower now,
the people pushing closer, drawn by the sheer presence and wonder
before them – a section sliding slowly down below to just above
head height. The synthesizer console is rolled closer, to facilitate
any communication, but with what? Warnings about safety zones, low
gravity and static charges come from the speaker, but who cares about
such nonsense when confronted with such a spectacle!

Jillian
has seen enough from back there. Resolutely, she moves down to get
closer as the technical staff get their act together. Time for the
five-tones. Accompanied on the light panel, keyboard guy goes for it.
After a brief pause, the craft responds, lights pulsing and a
sequence of strident and deep, tuba-like sounds. Encouraged, our man
plays the tones again, getting a slightly disappointed sequence back.
Maybe these Earth guys are a little limited? Undaunted, keyboard guy
keeps playing, getting a stentorian response that blows the glass out
of one of the cabins.*

*An
effect that Spielberg had to fund with his own money due to
penny-pinching at the studio.

The
synth player keeps at it and the Mothership crew are up for a
challenge, repeating the motif and then riffing on it. It’s a
language after all – and they are holding the class. Luckily, some
of the finest minds available begin to work out this new vocabulary
and next the keyboard sends a more developed response than the basic
greeting we’re all sick of by now. Roy is free to roam ever closer
as the cosmic jam develops. Keyboard guy is right in the thick of it,
yet doesn’t have a clue what they’re saying to each other. A
supervisor explains; it’s a basic tonal vocabulary. Another chips
in; it’s the first day of school…

The
session heats up, the keyboard player working hard to keep up with
the Mothership in the sound and light stakes. The light panel is
fairly ablaze now. Jean Michelle Jarre eat your heart out. Jillian
has made it into the arena now, her desire to be closer to all this
overcoming her trepidation. Now the technical staff have a handle on
the basics, they take over from the keyboard tech, playing the synth
from the control center. Jillian and Roy are delighted by the show,
but then things take a turn for the darker, as the lights on the ship
dim and some gloomy elephantine notes take over. I could be wrong,
but it sounds exactly like the Jaws theme… nobody knows how to
respond to this sudden melancholia.

Abruptly,
an aperture opens up in the bottom of the ship, an envelope of light
perhaps forty feet wide appearing, sending the crowd back in sudden
panic. It’s a ramp, lowering slowly to the ground. Night becomes
day as the searing whiteness sends shadows across the arena, but Roy
pushes through to stand near the front. He’s come a long way for
this after all.

Movement
– there’s movement! People, there are people emerging from the
dazzling glare, walking with uncertain steps down the ramp. Seven
human beings, dressed in US Naval Aviator’s uniform and clearly in
a state of confusion approach Lacombe. He introduces himself and one
of the new arrivals returns the favor; Frank Taylor, Lieutenant J.G.
United States Navy Reserve. 064199. One of the supervisors is there
to welcome the Lieutenant home, shaking his hand and shepherding him
off to debriefing. Totally bemused, the young pilot allows himself to
be led as, one by one, the other men report in.

(Although
based on the real-life crews of the infamous Flight 19 – lost in
the so-called ‘Bermuda Triangle’, the names were changed for the
film, out of respect to the surviving relatives of the lost men.)

As
they come in, their names and details are checked out on clipboards
and a light panel of photographs; all missing persons, some missing
no more. One by one, these men step into the late Twentieth Century
as if from a dream – and none a day older than the day they
disappeared back in 1945. A senior figure approaches the elder team
leader to comment on this; Einstein was right. He responds ‘Einstein
was probably one of them.’

More
people now, dressed in garb from different eras, all walking from the
ramp in the same state of wonderment, Roy walking past them towards
the ship as if sleepwalking. Then even more people, a veritable flood
of misplaced and lost souls, even a dog. Among these a man helps a
little boy down the slippery-smooth ramp. A familiar little boy at
that; it’s Barry! His mother is there to meet him, scooping him up
into her arms. The litany of names continues over the tannoy as
Lacombe finally notices Roy, going to him he asks what he wants.
Sighing, he replies; ‘I just wanna know that it’s – it’s
really happening.’ Barry is telling Jillian that he went in the air
and saw their house. Bursting with happiness, she asks if he saw her
running after him. He did.

Urgently,
Lacombe calls a hasty conference among the top men. He wants to
discuss Roy Neary’s case, but time is short, the ramp having
discharged its cargo is beginning to close again. Barry is sad his
new friends are going away. He’s upset, but Jillian’s tears are
of joy. Lacombe, meanwhile has rejoined Roy to tell him he envies
him. No sooner has he said this than an intense radiance announces
the opening of the ramp for the second time. What emerges this time
is truly out of this world, a figure like no other with long, spindly
appendages that lend the being an almost insect-like quality, a torso
and a head that gazes out at the attentive humanity with curious
intent. The senior team leader walks forward now, keen to confront
the culmination of a life’s work.

The
ethereal figure stands erect, long arms raised to either side in a
gesture that seems to say ‘Here I am.’ Then it is quite simply
gone (Possibly poor editing here, but I’ll be generous and suggest
it’s part of the mystery), to be replaced by a whole wave of
extra-terrestrial voyagers. Down the ramp they toddle, small ungainly
creatures with over-sized heads and long thin fingers, to gather
before the spellbound humans in rough assembly like kids at playtime.
An official takes Roy to one side, asking for his blood type, date of
birth etc. Has he been inoculated against smallpox, diphtheria? Any
history of familial liver disease?

Things
seem to have reached an impasse, with both humans and aliens stood in
mute contemplation of each other. Running along a metal gangway,
Jillian takes the opportunity to grab some photos with her Rollei,
snapping away to get shots of the E.T.s, little Barry watching on.

In
a cabin set aside for the purpose, the Mayflower team of astronauts
sits and receives the blessing of a priest; May God help us and
grant a happy journey. Some of their faces betray their nerves,
but they are led out by the sky-pilot, equipped with only the
contents of their duffel bags and courage. Bringing up the rear of
these fine physical specimens, the slightly less imposing Roy Neary
chats amiably with one of the supervisors as he takes his place in
line for embarkation.

The
little alien visitors inspect the Mayflower team, walking down the
line and selecting Roy alone. He goes with them, leaving the
Astro-nots behind and the diminutive creatures take his arm in a
gesture of welcome and belonging. It’s not clear who’s leading
who as he holds his arms out and the little group walks to the ramp,
Roy offering the watching team a farewell smile. Jillian’s getting
it all on film as Roy hesitates, turning to Lacombe who gestures
‘go’. Spotting Jillian and Barry, he returns her look; she’s
tearful, but happy for him. Turning, Roy Neary takes his leave of
this world, stepping gingerly up the precarious ramp to the mystery
beyond.

The
aliens have all departed, save the most important of all, the one who
now comes down to take a close look at Claude Lacombe. Clearly, this
being knows of Lacombe’s own importance to the first meeting
between their species and jubilantly, the Frenchman hand-signals to
the interstellar traveller… who returns the gestures, with a smile.
Lacombe can only smile back as the being climbs back into the
Mothership.

Everyone
hustles to clear the arena in preparation for the departure and while
Jillian grabs some last shots, young Barry bids his friends goodbye.
The magnificent ship rises into the still night, rising towards the
stars from whence it came, carrying its crew and one man who is
finally receiving the answers he gave everything to find.

At
age seventeen, Steven Allan Spielberg managed to find $500 for his
first full-length motion picture, ‘Firelight’ (1964). His
first foray into the movies was a train wreck – literally, as he’d
filmed his toy trains crashing. ‘Firelight’, with it’s story of
scientists investigating UFO incidents was a success – technically.
After the screening at the Phoenix Little Theatre, Arizona, Spielberg
counted the take. He’d made a dollar profit.

After establishing his
name as Hollywood’s ‘Wunderkind’, Spielberg signed a deal for a
UFO movie with Columbia in 1973. Titled ‘Watch the Skies’,
the movie was put back while he made the summer blockbuster Jaws
(1975), after which he was virtually given carte blanche; the script,
by Paul Schrader
featured a USAF officer working on Project Blue Book who, after
experiencing a UFO encounter for himself threatens to go public.
Spielberg disliked the script, so Schrader’s ‘Kingdom
Come’ went
into the bin. Schrader was to go on to pen, amongst other films,
Scorsese’s ‘Taxi
Driver’
(1976)

More
re-writes; the protagonist becomes a Police officer and so on.
Eventually, Spielberg took over the screenwriting duties himself,
with Jerry Belson, a veteran TV and Movie scripter. Working with the
leitmotif
of
the ‘Pinnochio’
(1940) song ‘When
you wish upon a Star’ Spielberg
and Belson crafted a tale around a child abducted by a UFO.

Professor J. Allen Hynek

The title
was changed to ‘Close
Encounters of the Third Kind’, a
term coined by the film’s scientific adviser, Professor J. Allen
Hynek, of Project Blue Book fame. After
investigating over twelve thousand reports, Hynek and his team had
concluded that while most sightings were explicable, a small
percentage remained unexplained. He had gone on to found the Center
for UFO Studies (CUFOS)
before working with Spielberg. Hynek
has a cameo in the film, at ‘Tranquility Base’; he’s the older
man with pointed beard, glasses and pipe. An
enormously important figure in the scientific research of the
unexplained, Hynek had classified UFO encounters thus;

Principle
photography began on May 16th,
1976. Locations
used included Devil’s Tower National Monument, Wyoming, Alabama,
California and India. Two gigantic disused Air Force Airship hangars
in Mobile, Alabama were used as soundstages for
the ‘Tranquility Base’ scenes as well as the scene where the
cop cars chase the UFO around a bend.The
Neary home interior was also filmed there.
Fans of the film (And if you aren’t, what are
you doing here?) might like to know the famous scene where Roy’s
truck is approached by a UFO was filmed at Padgett Switch near
Irvington, Alabama. The
sandstorm – and later, the ship featured in the 1980 ‘Special
Edition’ (Extra scenes were shot and added to the original film)
were shot in the Mojave desert. The exterior of the Neary home is
1613 Carlisle Drive East in Colonial Heights to the West of Mobile,
while Jillian’s house stands at 22250 State Highway 181, Fairhope,
Alabama.Bay
Minette stood in for the evacuation center in Wyoming.

Special
Effects giant Douglas Trumbull (2001:
A Space Odyssey, Silent Running, Blade Runner) was
the Visual Effects Supervisor on CE3K,
while Carlo Rambaldi (King
Kong, Alien, E.T.) designed
the aliens. Legendary artist Ralph McQuarrie designed the Mothership.
John Williams provided the score, including the famous five-note
motif – itself parodied in Moonraker
(1979) as the key-pad tone at Drax’s Venice laboratory.

Richard
Dreyfuss plays Roy Neary, a lineman who experiences a Close
Encounter. Reportedly, Steve McQueen was Spielberg’s first choice,
but ruled himself out. Hackman, Hoffman and Pacino all turned down
the role. His nephew, Justin, plays his son Toby Neary.

Renowned
French Director Francois Truffaut is Claude Lacombe, a French
Government expert.

Bob
Balaban is Laughlin, Lacombe’s assistant and interpreter. His
on-set diary was later published as the Close Encounters of the
Third Kind Diary. (I cherish my copy to this day.)

Melinda
Dillon portrays Jillian Guiler, mother of abductee Barry, who
searches for both her son and the truth.

The
calendar found in the Grumman Avenger was a 1972 version of a 1945
calendar, a promotional item for a bank whose logo features
prominently.

The
Federales are wearing out-dated uniforms in the film.

When
Roy Neary argues with his Wife, Toby, one of their sons closes his
bedroom door. If you listen carefully, Spielberg can be heard
whispering for him to close it.

The
globe at Echo Deep Space Station is supposedly worth $2,500, yet it’s
not in good condition; large dents are clearly visible, possibly from
previous takes.

At
roughly 2:07:49 you can clearly see one of the E.T.s accidentally
sliding down the ramp to the extreme left of shot; in fact several of
them slide down the ramp.

The
co-ordinates received by the scientists are for a point over 250
miles from Devil’s Tower.

No-one
in Mongolia uses camels for transportation; they use horses instead.

During
the film, the wrong insignia is shown on military personnel.

The
returnees from the 1940’s sport longish Seventies’ hair and
sideburns.

If
you pause at the right moment, you can clearly read the newspaper
article Ronnie Neary cuts out at 33:45. Names given include John
Milius and his girlfriend ‘Cylia’ John Milius is a famous
Screenwriter, Director and Producer and his second wife, Celia an
actress. Amusingly, to either side of the UFO report, you can see an
article reviewing Star Wars (1977). Oddly, in the ‘UFO’s
Over Five Counties’ piece, Pease Air Force Base is mentioned as
declining comment. Pease is in New Hampshire.

The
scene where Roy Neary packs his family into the truck to go
late-night UFO spotting was inspired by an incident from Spielberg’s
early years, when his parents rushed the kids into the family car
late one night to see a spectacular meteor shower.

The
technician at the keyboard is actually Philip Dodds, of ARP
Instruments, Inc. He arrived to install ARP 2500 Synthesizer and
wound up with a role in the film, getting into hot water with the
company over the time away from work this entailed.

Melinda
Dillon, who plays Jillian Guiler had a broken big toe when filming
started. Rather than risk losing the role, she carried on. Of all the
scenes to start with with an injury, she had to scramble up Devil’s
Tower!

Cary
Guffey was such a natural he became known as ‘One Take Carey’
on-set. Spielberg had a T-Shirt printed for him with the nickname. To
get such convincing performances from such a young child, the
Director used tricks such as waving a toy car from behind the camera
and having two crew members surprise him wearing clown and gorilla
suits.

Filmed
under the working title ‘Watch the Skies’, the final dialogue in
‘The Thing from another World’ (1951) When Roy is woken by
the cartoon, the same words are spoken.

When
the Neary house experiences the power cut, the miniature water
features on the model train layout glow – in a deleted scene his
son Toby accuses him of stealing his luminous paint, an accusation
confirmed by the suddenly luminous layout.

Veteran
Stuntman and Stunt Director Craig R.Baxley was injured crashing the
Police car chasing the UFOs when his car overshot the landing area.

Truffaut’s
character Lacombe is based on Jacques Vallée, the French
Computer Scientist, Ufologist and Astronomer. He reportedly argued
with Speilberg to make the explanation for the events in the film
more prosaic, rather than extra-terrestrial, but Spielberg argued he
knew what his audience expected.

Apparently,
Grateful Dead singer Jerry Garcia appears as a crowd extra in the
Indian scene.

Security
– and secrecy surrounding the production was intense, with
Spielberg editing in an apartment, locking the mothership model away
in his garage and strict access to the sets. At one point, Spielberg
himself, having forgotten his pass, was turned away from the Mobile
hangar set.

During
filming, Spielberg became obsessed with John Ford’s The
Searchers (1956), repeatedly screening the film after a day’s
shooting. Production Designer Joe Alves (Jaws, Escape from New
York) drove for thousands of miles looking for a suitable
location for the mother ship landing site. Finally, he selected
Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, as it suggested the terrain of Monument
Valley featured in Ford’s classic, but with a solitary and eerie
feel.

Major
Benchley, the Air Force spokesman who debunks the UFO phenomenon with
a fake photograph was named after Peter Benchley, author of Jaws.

When
they first see Devil’s Tower in the fles-I mean rock, Roy
suggests they get some gas and get down there. This refers to a
deleted scene at a gas station where the two are observed by a
military chopper.

During
the scene at Jillian’s home where the Aliens arrive, the floor vent
screws unscrew, a homage to a similar scene in The War of the
Worlds (1953) Spielberg went on, of course, to re-make the film.

Francois
Truffaut didn’t speak English well, delivering the line ‘They
belong here more than we’ which came out as ‘Zey belong here
Mozambique’. The crew had T-Shirts with the misheard line printed
and on learning of this, Truffaut was delighted.

As
well as a role as the Brody family dog in Jaws, Steven
Spielberg’s Cocker Spaniel, Elmer has a brief role as a returnee,
sliding down the Mothership ramp.

The
returnee’s names are read out over a PA system, including one Ken
Swenson, the name of one of the model-makers. Swenson would go on to
work on many films, including Independence Day (1996) and
Night at the Museum (2006)

A
proposed follow-up named ‘Night Skies’ was considered, but
dropped when Spielberg decided to make E.T. (1982)